Problem-Solving Success Tip: Use Your Time for Problems that are Truly ImportantLearn Management Articles on management-info.biz. Problem-Solving Success Tip: Use Your Time for Problems that are Truly Important article will help answer your questions on Management Articles.We at management-info.biz specialize in Management Articles. Management Articles at management-info.biz provides the most up to date news and articles. If you have questions please do not hesitate to contact us.
Hard as it may be to walk away once you're aware of it, just because a problem is there doesn't mean you have to solve it. Ask yourself and your colleagues, 'What will happen if we don't solve this problem?' If the answer is, 'not much,' then turn your attention to something more important. If you don't know what will happen, find out before you undertake a problem-solving project. It should be clear to you and everyone else involved that the problem is worth the effort--and expense--to fix it. Quantify the cost of the problem quickly, but as realistically as you can. Include lost opportunity costs as well as real expenses such as staff time to deal with the problem, travel expenses, etc. Use actual costs where you can; estimate where you can't. Then guesstimate what it will cost to analyze and fix it. Write your analysis down, stating all your assumptions explicitly. Get a colleague to verify that your assumptions and estimates are reasonable. Start with a rough 'order of magnitude' estimate. That may be enough to answer the question of whether you should proceed. If it's not clear, especially if the cost to solve it will be high, do a more careful analysis. If it will cost more to fix than to live with the problem, or if the number is even close, perhaps your resources (time, people, money) are better spent on other projects. If you decide to proceed anyway, you can do so with a better understanding of what you're undertaking. On the other hand, if you can demonstrate that the cost of the problem is much higher than the cost of solving it, using estimates based on reasonable assumptions, it will generally be much easier to get the resources you need. You can use your written analysis as a sales tool to help win support for your decision to proceed or not. We have to learn to distinguish those things that are truly important from those that are merely urgent. --Jerry D. Campbell
copyright 2005. Jeanne Sawyer. All Rights Reserved. |
More Articles:1. Resistance - How to Handle It By Alan Fairweather Do you ever meet with resistance from other people - I bet you do! It might be a customer, a colleague, a member of your team or even someone in your personal life. Dealing with resistance or objections is one of the biggest challenges faced by business people; so let's consider why we get resistance and how we can handle it. I'm going to talk about customer contacts but the same rules apply whether it's a colleague or even someone in your personal life.Well there's good news and bad news - fi… 2. Demise of the Lone Ranger Manager: A Lesson in Management Communication Style By Azriel Winnett When executives see themselves as solely responsible for the overall success of their enterprise, subordinates can hardly be blamed for acting according to predictions.Let's look at a familiar scene in classical American - if I may use the word - mythology.Panic and terror have brought all normal activity to a standstill in some pioneering settlement in the Wild West. A bunch of bad guys have been scaring the pants off the innocent, helpless and disorganized townsfolk.Then an imposing mask… 3. The Communications Myth By David Meyer Living in the 21st Century is truly marvelous, isn't it? We live in a world of instant communications where everything we need to know is right at our fingertips. The moment anything of significance occurs it is instantly transferred around the globe making us the most well informed generation in the history of the world.Why is it then that communications is such a problem in the modern workplace? Why do so many employees believe that key decisions of upper management, or even their immediate … 4. Finding Common Ground Through Consensus Decision-Making By John Abrams It’s clear to me that a workplace is a better place when employees truly work in teams, but the most familiar team models we have are those that are created to win wars and games. We have a commander or a coach who gives orders, and the soldiers or the players use those instructions to defeat the opponent. Mediator Bill Ury says, “People are realizing that adversarial, win–lose attitudes in an increasingly interdependent world, where I depend on you and you depend on me, just don’t work anymor… |
||||
